What Constitutes True Social Justice?

I often wonder what it would be like to wake up in a world where liberals believe half of the shit that they regularly spout. You know the catch phrases, we’re colour blind, men and women are equal, children have universal rights, cruelty to animals is wrong etc. We give lip service to so many things and fall so far short of living up to our stated beliefs.

The same people that can walk up to alter crying in front of God and Church that they are redeemed, will in the very next moment use religion to justify their ignorance and xenophobia.

The west is a culture that thrives on the masquerade. I do believe the only honest city in the U.S.A is Las Vegas. When you roll into that city, they make it more than clear that their goal is to rob you blind with a smile. Yes, we’ll kiss your ass until you go broke, and then we’ll happily put you on the next bus home. The bullshit is right out there for the world to see.

Social Justice is dishonest because it pretends to care. Equality, is the repeated mantra, and most believe it, until it conflicts with their special interest movement.

Feminism is all about women, but you had better be white, and privileged. The MRA is all about men, but once again white and privileged. The GLBTQI want to be treated like anyone else, but you must clearly understand that the movement itself is white and privileged.

Do you see a recurring theme here? Let me have the honour of spelling it out for you, WHITE AND PRIVILGED. Even movements that we do not typically associate with inner discord like disability groups, and fat hatred groups have one major thing in common their leaders are white.

Due to the fact that these particular groups are fighting to make the world a better place, (with the exception of the MRA) we are not supposed to notice the white power structure. The suffering of whiteness is meant to blind us to the ways in which they participate in the social imbalance that creates their own stigmatization.

If you support one form of ism and “othering,” you should hardly be surprised when the same standard is applied to you. All forms of oppression are interconnected. What blinds people to this simple truth is a quest for power. The overvaluation of whiteness encourages the systemic hierarchy wherein so-called leaders of justice movements continually choose white representation, silencing the members of their group that are of colour.

POC listen as we are repeatedly told how wrong racism is by the so called avante garde avengers. We watch incredulously as they pat themselves on the back, and yet routinely silence us in group meetings. Don’t pretend you don’t know what I am talking about either. Time after time a person of colour will make a suggestion about fundraising, or outreach only to have it rejected. Magically before the meeting comes to an end, the same suggestion is re-worded and suggested by someone white and it is hailed as a stroke of freaking genius.

But why focus on race and specifically whiteness when social justice movements are working so hard to make a change? I continually return to whiteness and race because it is the elephant in the room.

We only want to speak about race in the ways in which we have become comfortable. To deviate from the liberal belief that we are all post racial, or that the world is colour blind forces us to talk about the ways in which whiteness daily fails to acknowledge that it is indeed an issue in inequality. Whiteness is neither dormant or passive; it daily engages in preserving its hegemony.

Liberals hide behind their justice movements and then daily use whiteness to recreate and perpetuate oppression. Until you can truly say that you are interested in benefiting everyone, you need to stop and think about the ways in which your whiteness informs your behaviour.

I know that you have been taught that whiteness is the default neutral, or that whiteness does not constitute a race, but that is far from the truth. If you cannot even acknowledge the ways in which you are an active body, it is because you have become accustomed to embracing the power which is embedded to your body.

Wanting true social justice and equality means more than owning your unearned privilege, it means actively seeking to listen to the voices of people of colour. It means ensuring that within the movement that you are participating in, that you’re not recreating social injustice. To care about bettering humanity means putting aside your interests and understanding the ways in which you benefit from an unbalanced system. In truth POC can tell you over and over again the ways in which we have been marginalized, but until whiteness makes a conscious decision that equality, means equality for all, these movements are doomed to failure. You cannot fight one oppression by sustaining another.